A. About Baptism Administered by Two Ministers who Together do the Whole

33. About the first [n.30] I say that that person is baptized, because it is not likely that one doer would annul the deed of the other; but if only one of them were to do what both do, it would be done; therefore, no less is it done when the other does the like.

34. About this there are two doubts:

The first is that the same thing cannot be from two total causes; but when one washes and speaks the words he is the total cause in baptizing, and does it with the causality that belongs to a minister; therefore, the same baptism cannot be from someone else who is a causer in the same place in the same order. The major is proved through this proposition, that nothing is a cause when, on its non-existence, the effect none the less exists [cf. Ord. I d.3 n.522].

35. Again, if the agent and the form by which he acts are different things, the form induced is different (this is taken from the Commentator [Averroes] on Physics 5, comm.2 48-49); but here there is this agent and that agent (in the way being an agent belongs to a minister), and a different form by which each acts, because there is one intention in this agent and another in that; therefore the act of baptizing is simply different. But to each action belongs its own action undergone; so there are several undergoings of baptism there, and consequently several baptisms.

36. As to the first [n.34] I concede the major about the cause that does effectively induce the form.

37. And if it is objected that at least the form of baptism, as it is a sacrament, is induced by the minister, and thus there are two causes and each is total - I respond: if each washes, neither is total cause in washing, and this whether the washing is done by immersion - (for then both move the body of the one immersed by one motion that is caused by the motive power of both; and although another could cause the motion, nevertheless when they move together neither uses his whole motive power to the extent he could use it - it is plain when two carry one weight which either could carry) - or whether it be done by pouring or sprinkling; albeit each make [the recipient] wet with the per se poured water, yet neither makes him wet with the whole wetting that comes from the sprinkling done by both.

38. But a difficulty still seems to stand, because each is total cause with respect to the speaking of the words; therefore, as to one part of the exterior effect (which is the sacrament) there will be two total causes, and this is as impossible about a part of the effect as about the whole of it.

39. I reply: it is difficult for the words of one of them not to be superfluous in this way, that they are not per se part of one sacrament; because it is to set down two things of the same idea as parts of one thing that is simply perfect in having one of them; the other seems to be superfluous.

40. But which words are superfluous, and whose as speaker, is difficult to assign, because the reason by which it is this one is a reason by which it is that one - and so each or neither is superfluous, because each speaks the words equally completely and with like intention.

Look for the response.b

b.b [Interpolation] It can be said that the act of baptizing by this one or that other one is valid, namely his whose act of baptizing God accepts. But whose he accepts determinately is altogether uncertain to us; only God knows, and he to whom he wishes to reveal it.

41. To the second argument, about action [n.35], there is doubt whether it be placed in the undergoer or the doer. And if in the undergoer, the action is not a ‘many’ in reality if the undergoings are not many; nor are the undergoings many when the form received in the undergoer is one; and, by holding this view, the major proposition that is taken from the Commentator [n.35] must be denied. But if action be placed in the agent, whether action is something absolute or a relation to the undergoer, then the major can be conceded; but then the proposition that ‘to diverse actions respond diverse undergoings’ [n.35] is false. In whichever way, then, that action is spoken about, several baptizings are not posited but one is.

42. And from this seems to follow a corollary, that the sacrament of baptism is more the baptism undergone than the baptism done, because baptism is not multiplied when the doing of baptism is multiplied, for the undergoing of baptism is one. This inference also seems probable, because the one baptized properly receives the sacrament; for he properly receives the washing undergone, and not the washing done, unless the washings be said to be the same really.